What’s on this week: 14 to 20 February

The annual light show Bright Festival boasts 20 installations along two trails: the Royal Route and the European Route. These monumental, immersive and poetic illuminations have been created by national and international artists. A fringe programme includes the popular Bright Market in Cinquantenaire Park, plus live performances and guided tours. A Kids Zone in Brussels Park runs activities, while also hosting HORIZONS² (pictured), a long strip of vibrant and radiant light by Ofer Smilansky, in collaboration with Antoine Goldschmidt. 13 to 16 February, city centre

The internationally renowned Unsound Festival brings cutting-edge Polish electronic and experimental music to the capital thanks to Poland’s EU Council presidency. An inspiring line-up of Polish and international musicians include guitarist Raphael Rogiński with Lithuanian-Belgian singer and kanklės player Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė, an audiovisual project by Ukrainians Heinali & Yasia and UK rap artist Rainy Miller (pictured). The festival wraps up with a club night at Reset with an electrifying rota of live DJ sets. 14-15 February, Rue Ravenstein 23

What Brussels lacks in carnival parades, it makes up for in parties. Get into the colours, sounds and moves of the season with the Fiesta Latina. This carnival edition is no less spectacular than its annual autumn event and features costumed dancers, live music, 40+ food trucks, dance workshops and parades. Family-friendly during the day, pumping beats and drinks all night. Warning: Tickets are selling fast! 14-16 February, Tour & TaxisAvenue du Port 86C (Shed 1)

Home and renovation fair Batibouw sets up shop once again in Brussels Expo for its 65th edition. The biggest salon of its kind in Belgium focuses this year on affordable housing and new forms of construction such as tiny houses. This is 'the place' to pick up info from building professionals, whatever your home project. There are workshops on a range of topics as well as hundreds of stands. 15-23 February, Brussels Expo, Place de Belgique 1

For Saint Valentine's, the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra offers an ode to love with a programme of romantic music. Conducted by David Navarro-Turres, the vibrant orchestra promises a grandiose experience. They are joined by rising star Roger Morelló Ros, who performs Schumann’s famous cello concerto, and after Elgar’s Salut d’Amour, the evening concludes with Beethoven's 5th Symphony, a profound exploration of human emotion. 14 February, Novum (ex Théâtre Saint-Michel), Père Eudore Devroye 2 (Etterbeek)

For one weekend only, contemporary French artist S.Kristol, aka PASCHAT, shows off  his work at the Hilton Grand Place. The self-taught creative conjures up a fairytale world via sculpture and painting, exploring the theme of "inequality in the time of equality". Free entrance. 14-16 February, Carrefour de l’Europe 3

Round off your Valentine weekend in style with the 16th anniversary edition of the Love Bugs Parade. Autoworld’s annual event sees the gathering of some 300 Volkswagen Beetles  – immortalised in the famous film Herbie the Love Bug – gathering under the Cinquantenaire arch. They then head out onto the road in a revving, beeping show of Bug pride, driving en masse through the streets to the delight of spectators: destination Rosière, via Tervuren, Vossem and Overijse. The return to the car museum at around 15.50 is celebrated by a jazz serenaded tea. 16 February, cars on show from 10.00, parade starts at 14.00, Esplanade Cinquantenaire park (Etterbeek)

Let Sound the Drums of War! International rising theatre director Lisaboa Houbrechts directs Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage -  in Dutch, French, Kurdish and Hebrew - at the KVS. She transforms the moving anti-war drama into this multilingual, musical and visual creation that stars Belgian film actress Lubna Azabal as the iconic female heroine. The Brussels run and world premiere is followed by performances in Antwerp from 12 to 15 March. 20-22 February & 4-7 March, KVS Bol, Quai au Foin 7

Exhibitions at the Botanique are nothing if not original. Downstairs at the greenhouse, Belgium’s Lionel Pennings’ The Heist, inspired by hold-up stories and heist films, explores the world of theft through broken display cases, or those designed to be broken into, spatial signs and burglar’s tools. In the upstairs gallery space, Brussels-based French artist Ethel Lilienfeld unveils EMI (pictured), an enticing, orange-haired, orange-clothed virtual influencer, through video and digital screens. Looking past EMI’s seductive form, the project explores the increasing capitalisation of the body, and the fine line between beautiful and repulsive, real and fictitious, and living and dead. Until 6 April, Rue Royale 236 (Saint-Josse)

A perfect accompaniment to Brussels’ upcoming BANAD Art Nouveau and Art Deco festival (15-30 March), Les Maîtres de l’Affiche presents posters from this monthly publication produced during the Belle Epoque – a golden age of advertising beginning in late 19th century France. Subscribers received posters by renowned artists including Alphonse Mucha, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Georges Meunier, and by the magazine director Jules Chéret. This show includes works of Chéret, Lucien Lefèvre and Belgium’s so-called ‘Mucha Belge’, Henri Privat-Livemont. The Schaerbeek painter/decorator was famous for ‘sgraffites’ and myriad posters like the Art Nouveau ‘Absinthe Robette’. Until 30 March, Rue de Rouge-Cloître 4 (Auderghem)

OUTSIDE BRUSSELS

Anti-institutional, offbeat, definitely unconventional, Hugo Roelandt (1950-2015), performer, installation artist and photographer, was key in Antwerp’s post-war avant garde movement. The End is a New Beginning, his first retrospective, highlights this versatility from windscreen wiper sculptures at Middelheim, a nod to Belgium’s inclement weather, art ‘destroying art’ installations, table or water-filled plastic bag pyramids, even the Boel Project, where he hoisted passenger-filled buses into the air at a shipyard. See for yourself, as the M HKA museum wants to reproduce such feats of this socially-conscious artist who depicted ‘fluidity’ of gender as early as the 1970s. Until 25 May, Leuvenstraat 32 (Antwerp)

Naïve-style art work, self-filling milk vases and a ceramic bed are just some of Belgian Sigefride Bruna Hautman’s fascinating work (pictured) on show at M Leuven. Antwerp-based Hautman (1955), inspired by creative geniuses from Samuel Beckett to David Bowie, has been making hyperrealist sculptures, reliefs, installations, videos and collages since the 1980s. A History of Touch presents recent and new sculptures, paintings and drawings of Offenbach-born Grace Schwindt (1979). Some of her artworks, that explore themes of capitalism and the fragility of the human body – in one canvas a figure merges into the landscape – are inspired by M’s own collections. Until 31 August (Hautman) and until 16 November (Schwindt), Vanderkelenstraat 28, Leuven

Following a short winter maintenance break, the Bastogne War Museum re-opens to visitors on Friday. The centre dedicated to World War Two with a focus on the Battle of the Ardennes reports a record attendance of more than 180,000 visitors in 2024. Some 50% hailed from abroad, notably the Netherlands and the US. Figures were boosted last year by the 80th anniversary commemorations of the Battle of the Bulge (pictured). The museum incorporates the Bastogne War Rooms and the Bois Jacques Battlefield. Colline de Mardasson 5 & Rue de la Roche 40, Bastogne, Luxembourg province

The travelling exhibition Jurassic Expo calls in to Charleroi with some 50 3D dinosaurs on display at the Grand Palais. It invites the public to discover the animals that roamed Jurassic era some 65 million years ago. The show is set up in a 2,000m2 space and features replicas designed by US companies for the film industry. Reservation not necessary. 15 February to 9 March, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday 14.00-18.00, plus school holidays, Rue de l’Ancre, Charleroi

Discover more upcoming events at The Bulletin's events page.

Photos: (main image) Bright Brussels ©Ofer Smilansky; Rainy Miller ©Callan Dooley; Batibouw ©Seven Hendrix